Archive for May 1st, 2012

Snæfellsstofa Visitor Center communicates the dignity of the surrounding nature and is closely connected to its immediate surroundings. It attracts visitors to its unique appearance and simultaneously works as an attractor for indoor and outdoor activities. The building is divided into three parts so that it can be utilized in different ways, depending on the season.

PhotographerSigurgeirSigurjónsson – The marriage between the building and the landscape

Henning Larsen Architects and Dutch Van den Berg Groep have won first prize in an international competition for a 16,000 m2 theatre building that will also comprise the entrance to the zoological park in Emmen, the Netherlands. The well-known Dutch architecture companies MVRDV and Mecanoo also participated in the competition.

This urban infill project juxtaposes a tall, slender curved circulation space against a rectangular living space. The tall curved metal wall was a result of bulk plane restrictions and the need to provide privacy from the public decks of the adjacent three story triplex. This element becomes the focus of the residence both visually and experientially. It acts as sun catcher that brings light down through the house from morning until early afternoon. At night it becomes a glowing, welcoming sail for visitors.

Henning Larsen Architects and a team consisting of Signal Architects and SLA Landscape Architects have won the competition for Nordea’s new office building of 40,000 m2 in Ørestad North, Copenhagen, next to the premises of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and the Concert Hall – Koncerthuset. The building will comprise Scandinavia’s largest trading floor of 5,500 m2 with a view of the green area of Amager Fælled.

Breaking the prescriptive mold of horizontally layered homes, NaCl House aspires to render unclear the spatial organization of the project and explore an architecture of ambiguous scale. The resultant massing reveals an imperfect, rough-hewn form recalling the natural isometric formation of mineral rock salt.

The Lekhwiya Sports Complex will be the home stadium for the winning team of the Royal Cup, the Lekhwiya Club. The complex will also be used as a training site and home base for a guest team participating in the 2022 World Cup.

Designed in collaboration with ECG, Pieper Sports Facility Consulting, and Site Concepts International, the Lekhwiya Sports Complex will serve as an identifiable icon for the home club, while its mix of uses will provide for a variety of experiences for players, fans, and sponsors alike. Inspiration for the design drew from longstanding aspects of Doha’s and Qatar’s culture and their dominating features. For instance, Doha’s location on the water, its history as a port city, and its boating and sailing culture inspired the design of the stadium’s very form. At the same time, the history of pearl harvesting in the Arabian Gulf is referenced in the smooth white oval and dome shapes.

The Museum Project was the result of an ideas competition organized by the Hellín Municipality. The competition rules considered the refurbishment of the Casa del Conde as well as the construction of an extension on the plot area former occupied by some small service buildings of the house.

The Atrium, a high-density mid-rise office building set in a transitional area of downtown Victoria, challenged its architects: how can a speculatively-built office building revitalize a moribund area and enrich the community at large? How can the economics of high-density, downtown office buildings work in a mid-rise, green-building form?

Software used: Vectorworks CAD predominantly, as well as Sketch-up professional and photoshop. The architects built many physical models of wood and paper board.The wood trusses and the concrete superstructure of the building were both computer modeled (dynamic models to test behavior during seismic events) by the fabricators ‘Structurecraft’ and ‘Stantec’ respectively.

Occupying the length of a city block, the Atrium actively engages its civic context. To complement Victoria’s historical downtown, and reintegrate the block into its urban fabric, the building takes a mid-rise form, built to the street walls to give definition to the public realm. The building’s palette of natural, durable materials invests the district with a welcome sense of commitment.

A transparent ground floor houses cafes and restaurants, inviting people to approach, look in, and stay a while. Rain gardens edge the site, a first for a private development in Victoria, catching and cleaning polluted street run-off, and softening the cityscape.

A seven-storey atrium introduces daylight into the heart of the structure, and maximizes the use of wood in non-combustible construction. The wood, visible from the street through a seven-storey glass wall, distinguishes the atrium from the surrounding offices, and invites the public to animate this urban room. Community groups have taken up the invitation, using the atrium to host such events as an opera performance and a film festival reception.

To create a more animated urban space, the project team commissioned an artist to design an installation for the atrium. This installation treats the atrium floor as a canvas for an abstract mosaic. The work is derived from the building’s lines and uses local marble tiles. Wood sculptures complement the mosaic’s lines, and provide places to sit.

Overhead, innovative wood trusses support a 7,200 square-foot skylight. Panelized hemlock slats follow the sweep of the atrium’s curving walls, and tongue and groove cedar soffits bring warmth and definition to the building’s street level. The family-owned company that commissioned the building ran one of the first lumber companies on Vancouver Island, a history that enriches the meaning of using wood in the atrium.

The atrium not only serves as a public room, but it acts as a return air plenum in the building’s highly efficient displacement ventilation system. Conditioned air is delivered near the floor, so the air requires less cooling. Convection draws the air to heat-generating occupants and equipment, where it’s needed. As the air warms, it rises naturally to exhaust through the ceiling. Displacement ventilation uses less energy to deliver higher quality air more quietly, and is a key component in the building’s LEED Gold-targeted environmental strategies.

A primary ambition for the Atrium was to create a building that will endure, and that will earn the regard of people who will help it to endure. In doing so, the Atrium gives weight to urban fit, sustainability, and occupant well-being as well as to profitability. While an institutional or owner-occupied office building might achieve a similar balance of priorities, as a speculative office building the Atrium raises the standard for its type.

Background
The client, HelgelandsKraft AS, is a large producer of hydraulic electricity in northern parts of Norway. In 2008 they started planning several new hydraulic power stations with high environmental ambitions. From the beginning their task for the architect was to find the best way to make their new power stations adapt to the site, and at the same time function as attractions and destinations. The general idea from the architects at stein hamre arkitektkontor, is the design of the new stations should reflect characteristics of the locations. At the same time the buildings should be spectacular. They should also tell the story about the production of power.

Located to the north-east of Crowley, the site lies between the urban/residential development to the west and the rural/agricultural development to the east. The design seeks to mediate this threshold and express the importance of the local agricultural development to place. Rice is the primary economy in the Parish and city of Crowley. Rice fields create a beautiful mosaic that blanket the landscape. Contours follow the natural topography, control water run-off and delineate rice paddies. As technology has advanced the rice fields have evolved from a more fluid configuration to a more orthogonal configuration. This results in a more efficient layout and maximizes the yield.